Archive of Our Own

Grace was working late in her lab, poring over research papers. Nobody else was present, which was poor protocol on her part, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk to other people right now. Besides, she was just reading.

She’d had… a frustrating few days.

First, Pogo had nearly died on entry. She and her team had put years of research into creating a rocket that would bring an animal as complex as a chimp safely home and they had nearly failed. They had failed. It was just that their failure hadn’t killed their astronaut. Barely.

Then there was the party that ended with sirens and gunshots and that strange man who kept insisting that Reginald was involved in an insane anti-government conspiracy. The man was obviously unwell, or lying.

Obviously.

She couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong though. And worse than that, Reginald had been behaving oddly, even more secretive than usual. If life had continued as normal she could have ignored the whole thing. She was almost more angry at him than anything for preventing her from being able to shake it off.

So here she was, in the lab, alone. Cooling off. Catching up on reading.

She flipped the page over, scanning the first new paragraph while she considered getting up to fetch a glass of water. Water sounded very nice right about now.

Before she could make up her mind to stop reading and get up, she heard a clang.

It sounded like it had come from somewhere in the hall.

“Hello?” Grace said. She rose, carefully, and stepped over to the door to poke her head out. To the left, nothing, but to the right, a flash a movement. “Hello,” she said, a little more insistently. She followed it down the hall.

Almost nobody should be in the building at the moment, except maybe some of the janitorial staff. Grace was almost certain she was the last of the scientists, or even any of the administration, to leave. And surely, anyone who was supposed to be here would have replied by now. She trotted to catch up.

Around the next corner, light emerged. A door, being opened by whoever this intruder was. As it swung open fully, the intruder paused and looked at her.

Grace gasped, then felt silly for gasping. The intruder didn’t look human, had a scaly, lizardlike face, had long clawed fingers, but of course he was just wearing a costume. But for a split second, she’d thought… well. He’d broken in; of course he didn’t want his face to be seen by anyone lingering.

“Sir,” she said, “excuse me—“ but the man in the alien costume had already stepped through the door.

She hurried down the hall as the door swung closed, not entirely sure what she was going to do but certain she shouldn’t let the man in the alien costume out of her sight. The door went to a records room, storing boxes of files relevant to her work on sending more and more complex animals to space. What did this man want with it? To steal it? To destroy it? Either way, he couldn’t be left alone with it, with the most cutting-edge research into space travel that America had yet produced.

Grace pulled open the door, squinting slightly against the sudden bright light, and stepped—

Outside?

Grace heard the door click behind her, and spun around. Instead of a door was an unassuming brick wall. She tested the bricks, pressing against them and trying to dislodge them, but she could feel the weight and heft and knew they were real. But she could not possibly have gone outside by going through a door that lead to a records room. She scratched harder. No hidden door, or entryway, or trick handle was forthcoming.

After all, she thought a bit hysterically, why should there be? This wall being here at all was impossible. The outside being inside the records room was impossible. Why would this impossible place still have the doorway that belonged to the records room?

No matter how impassioned her attempts, nothing she did transformed the brick wall back into the records room door. After a long moment, she turned back around to take stock of where she’d found herself.

She rubbed her arms. Wherever she was, it was chillier than Dallas.

She appeared to be in a fairly nondescript alleyway, unremarkable apart from the fact that she had never been here before, and moreover had been in her lab just a moment ago. The strange man in the alien costume was nowhere to be seen.

There was someone here, though. Further down the alley, the largest man she’d ever seen was sitting on the pavement with his knees to his chest, staring morosely at a strange car.

“Uh, hello,” she called to him, moving closer. “I’m … a bit lost. Can you tell me where I am?” She considered mentioning the man in the alien costume she’d been following, and decided against it.

The giant man looked over at her, chin still resting on his folded arms. His brow furrowed, and he drew himself out of the ball he was curled into. “We’re right outside the house,” he said. “Are you alright, Mom?”

Grace blinked. She waited for the giant man to apologize for accidentally calling her Mom, which he did not seem in a hurry to do.

“Excuse me,” she said.

The giant man did not respond, nor did he explain himself.

Grace looked around, like something about the unremarkable alleyway or strange car would help her. “Why did you call me your mother?” she said, hoping repeating the giant man’s words back to him would spark a realization.

The giant man sighed and curled back into his sad ball.

“It’s okay if it was an accident,” she said, to no avail.

Grace shifted on her feet. She cleared her throat pointedly. After a moment, she added, “Why are you pretending you can’t hear me? Calling me your mom was strange but it wasn’t the end of the world.”

The giant man remained still. If she didn’t know any better she would think he had frozen in place. But obviously that was preposterous; he was just acting like she wasn’t there for some reason. Grace went up to him and tried waved her hands in his face. No reaction, not even a blink or a twitch.

Eventually, she gave up. She leaned back against the car with her arms crossed, defeated.

“What’s wrong with you, anyway?” she asked. The giant man’s face suddenly animated in reaction to her as it hadn’t for the last several minutes, like a TV screen flickering to life.

“I told Diego I would fix his car,” he said gloomily, hunching down further.

Grace was a little taken aback that he’d responded after so long ignoring her. Or after so long … being unable to hear her? No, that was nonsense. Although he had an incredible poker face. He’d gazed right through her to the same spot on the car, sighing and resolute in his gloom, even when she’d snapped her fingers right between his eyes.

“Fix his car?” Grace repeated, noticing she’d gone a little too long without replying. She didn’t ask who Diego was, in case it resulted in another round of silence.

“Yeah,” the giant man said. “Diego said that it was making a weird noise but he didn’t want to waste the money to get it checked out, and I told him I could take a look.” He groaned, putting his face into his hands. “I don’t know why I said that! I don’t know anything about cars. But he was all grateful and now I have to fix a car I don’t know anything about or I’ll let him down.”

“Or,” Grace said, “you could just tell him you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I can’t do that,” said the giant man, dropping his hands. “I told him I could do this. That would break his trust.” His brow furrowed in worry. “Plus, what if I tell him I couldn’t do it, and he decides not to take it to the shop? What if it’s really serious and it breaks down while he’s driving on the highway and he gets into an accident? What if he dies? And I could have prevented it if I’d known how to fix it!”

Grace raised her eyebrows. She didn’t know what to say to that. She stared at him for a long moment. He stared at the car. The car continued to sit, unmoving and presumably unfixed.

“So, what,” said Grace. “Is the plan to sit here until you magically know how to fix a car?” She thought she was perhaps being rude, but he was the one who had ignored her for several long minutes. And he still hadn’t apologized for calling her Mom.

The giant man buried his face in his hands again. “I don’t know,” he said, a little muffled.

“You never answered my question either,” remembered Grace. “Where are we?”

The giant man lowered his fingers a bit to look at her incredulously. “We’re right outside the house.”

Grace waited.

“It’s on the right,” he added after a moment. “With the gate in the front.”

He did not seem to be in a hurry to supply any actually useful information, such as the city or even a street name. “Okay then,” said Grace. She glanced one last time back at the car. It truly was quite odd, shaped unlike any car she’d ever seen. Perhaps it was foreign.

“Anyway, if you’re so worried about the car breaking down you should take it to the mechanic yourself,” Grace said, then left the alley. Behind her, she heard a surprised “Oh!”

The giant man had been exaggerating about being right outside the house, too. She passed a butcher shop first. It seemed closed, or maybe abandoned; most of the windows were papered over with old advertisements so she couldn’t get much of a glimpse inside to gauge. The gate was a short walk down. It lead to a significantly larger affair than she had been expecting, given it was a house on a city block. When she nudged at it, the gate swung open; unlocked. The door, to her surprise, was unlocked too.

The inside was cavernous. Grace looked around as she stepped through the door. The house had seemed sizable from the outside, but reasonably able to fit on the city block with its neighbors. Inside though, the entrance hall seemed to stretch past its boundaries, and looming doorways on either side hinted that the actual breadth of the house was even wider. She had no idea how the butcher shop she’d seen next door was supposed to fit.

“Hello,” she called, not very loudly. Even so, her voice echoed off the expanse of tile and the airy reaches of the staircase. There was no sign of any response, so she turned to close the door behind her.

When she turned back, there was a boy standing at the bottom of the staircase.

“Hello,” he said, and tilted his head. “Who are you?”

“Sorry for intruding, I was just,“ said Grace, who had no idea why she was intruding. “Anyway. My name is Grace.”

“Hm,” said the boy. He leaned forward a bit, peering at her. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure what?” said Grace, a little startled.

“That you’re Grace, of course,” said the boy a bit shortly, like she was being obtuse on purpose.

Grace frowned. “Of course I’m sure, that’s my name. What kind of question is that?”

“You don’t seem very much like Grace to me,” the boy said. He put his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t Grace at all.”

Grace stared at him. She wasn’t quite certain what she was supposed to do with that. This strange child had appeared out of nowhere, seemed unruffled by her existence as a stranger in what was presumably his house, and accused her of not knowing her own name. She felt a little bad for breaking in, but surely she was not the only person that was behaving unacceptably here. “My name is Grace,” she said again.

“Maybe,” said the boy, and disappeared.

Grace startled a little, then looked wildly around. He couldn’t have actually disappeared, could he? Perhaps she had blinked, and he was very fast. Or perhaps there was an optical illusion of some kind set up on the staircase. For some reason. To scare random unannounced visitors, maybe. For a long moment, she saw no sign of him.

“Over here,” the boy said. Grace’s gaze shot in his direction. He was standing in one of the side doorways, holding a brightly colored drink that had not been present at any point prior. It looked distinctly alcoholic.

“How did you do that?” Grace demanded, walking towards him.

He slurped on the curly straw instead of replying. Then he asked, “Would you like a margarita?”

“I would really rather you explain yourself,” she said, but followed him anyway. He made a straight line through an ostentatious living room to a bar along the back. The boy’s offer was either rhetorical, or he had taken her reply as refusal, because he neither gave an explanation nor made her a margarita.

“Well?” she asked. “What was that magic trick? Why do you keep insisting that I’m not Grace?”

The boy tapped at his glass thoughtfully, watching her. “Have you thought about why you keep insisting that you are?” Grace opened her mouth to furiously reply, but he continued quickly, “Go on. Tell me about something Grace would know. Can you recite the Odyssey?”

“Of course I can recite the Odyssey,” Grace said huffily.

“Greeks and Theoi went up to Troy
to fetch lord Zeus’ daughter
Troy fell down
Greeks sacked the town
and set to sea right after

“Odysseus took his lot and homeward trot
kept running into danger
men drowned at sea but he broke free
and washed up with a stranger

“Penelope wove and away men drove
and waited for her husband.
Odysseus left and the goddess wept
while his son went for an errand

“The man ran aground whom the princess found
and began to fall in love
But—“

Grace stopped, frowning. She gazed at the table in front of her, because she did not want to meet the boy’s eyes.

“That wasn’t the Odyssey.”

“I know.”

“I’m not sure what that was.”

“I know.” Grace knew the Odyssey. She certainly knew how to recite the first several lines. But wracking her brain, the only words that she could find were nonsensical and meaningless. Why couldn’t she remember?

“Let’s try something else,” said the boy, not unkindly. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Tell me about your thesis. What did you research?”

Perhaps Grace had simply forgotten the Odyssey. That was possible, though it did not explain why she had been compelled to make up that rhyme in its place. This, though? This was inscribed on the back of her eyelids. She couldn’t possibly mess it up. “It was on chimpanzee intelligence,” Grace began.

“Go on,” said the boy.

“I found that given infinite chimpanzees and infinite typewriters for an infinite amount of time, pure chance would eventually produce the math required to send a rocket to space,” Grace said. She frowned. “Wait, no. I found that if you locked a chimpanzee in a box with a poison vial that may or may not break, the chimpanzee would be both dead and alive until you opened the box to administer the antidote. No!” Grace growled. “I found… I found… none of this is right at all! I know what I found! I don’t know why I keep saying nonsense instead!” She put her head in her hands. “I should know this. I do know this! I think. If I were Grace, I would know this. How can I be Grace and not know this!”

“Simple,” said the boy. “You’re not.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” Grace said. She slumped. “Who am I if I’m not Grace, though? And why do I feel so strongly that I am?”

“I’m not sure,” said the boy. He turned to face her, leaning one arm on the bar to peer better at her face. “You’re certainly very Grace-like. Perhaps this is new. Or the other way around, perhaps you’re just not Grace yet. It’s very clear to me now that you’re not actually Grace, though.”

“I’m pretty sure I used to be Grace,” said Grace, who was quite certain she had been Grace earlier in the day. “But by your logic that means I’ve become not-Grace. I think I would prefer the other version. I was not Grace but now will become Grace. That way I could look forward to knowing who I am.”

“So would we all,” muttered the boy, leaning back out of her space. He looked into his glass, a trace of bitterness in his expression.

Grace couldn’t bring herself to care very much about whatever was occupying him. “Well?” she said. “Was there anything else you wanted from me? Other than to make me question all of my memories and who I even am?”

The boy pulled himself out of his funk and considered this for a moment. “No,” he decided. “At first I thought you might be someone I knew, but I can see that’s not true. It’s a shame,” he added, “ I’ve missed her.” Then once again, the boy disappeared.

This time, Grace didn’t bother looking around, or even glancing up. She rested her chin in her hand and stole the boy’s abandoned drink. She’d been right; it was distinctly alcoholic.

—

After a while, Grace got bored of moping. She stuck the strange wrongness of her memories and the conversation she’d had with the boy firmly in a box, not to be thought about until after she’d dealt with this odd place. She left the margarita, not yet quite gone, at the bar and wandered into the entrance hall again.

It took her a moment to realize she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t the boy again; this time it was someone else, standing at the middle landing of the staircase. He was staring out the window and holding a violin, though not as though he were planning on playing it.

Another person who lived in this strange house, then. Perhaps she could sneak out the door and continue the search for the man in the alien costume before he noticed she was there.

Grace stepped very quietly, perfectly silently to her ears, towards the door. The expanse of tiled floor did not creak underneath her, and her shoes didn’t make so much as a click. Even so, she had only taken a handful of steps when the violinist turned to see her. Shit.

“Mom?” He said.

“What,” said Grace, who had frozen mid-tiptoe upon discovery and thus was not feeling her most put-together.

“Are you all right?”

“Um,” said Grace. Had she just misheard the first part? Most likely it was some other monosyllabic exclamation, and the violinist was just surprised that this stranger was in his house. She put all her limbs back in order to stand properly. “Yes? I’m sorry for intruding.”

The violinist moved away from the window and started down the staircase, looking worried. “Mom? What are you talking about?” He furrowed his brow. “Are you malfunctioning?”

So Grace hadn’t misheard, then. Why did these strange people keep acting like they knew who she was? Why did they keep calling her Mom?

And—malfunctioning? A strange chill went up her spine.

“I’m not your mom,” Grace said. The violinist stopped, midstep.

Hm.

She continued, experimentally. “I have no idea who you are and I’m trespassing inside your house.”

The violinist did not respond. He was a picture of faint worry frozen halfway down the stairs.

“Can you hear me,” Grace added. She walked towards him carefully, trying to gauge his expression. As far as she could tell, the violinist’s eyes remained focused precisely where she had been, and did not register her movement at all.

Drawing level with the violinist, Grace watched him. Up close, he wasn’t completely frozen; he breathed, and blinked, and shifted his weight occasionally, but he did not react to her presence. And he was still staring at the air at the bottom of the stairs that she used to occupy. After a moment, Grace left him to climb the remaining steps and peer out the window. A courtyard, with a broken statue surrounded by dead plants.

This was just like with the giant man outside. He had called her Mom too, and had seemed to shut down when she pushed him about it, instead of apologizing for the mistaken identity or the slip of the tongue or saying anything else at all.

And he hadn’t responded to her until she’d changed the subject.

“What were you doing up here?” Grace said. She turned slightly to see the violinist, like the giant man, suddenly animate. The violinist turned towards her, expression shy now instead of worried.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Not really anything. Just. Looking.” He came towards the window too, and stared out of it with a significance Grace couldn’t identify.

After a moment, he added, “I keep thinking about trying to play again. I miss it. But…” he trailed off.

“But?” Grace prompted.

“I haven’t tried since… and… I don’t know, I could hurt people again. I have better control now, but… I haven’t tried with my violin yet. It might just be too dangerous. What if I can’t stop myself?” The violinist looked down at his violin, then turned it towards himself. It was still not in the proper position to play, but it was closer. It looked like he was thinking about it.

Grace wasn’t sure what to say to that. She had no idea what this since the violinist was talking about was, nor what was so dangerous about a violin. What did he mean by hurting people? She said, “it’s… noble of you. To be so… careful.” That was a diplomatic enough response, right?

“Yeah,” the violinist said. He was still looking at his violin, in its half-committed not-quite-correct position. The bow in his other hand was left down at his side. He looked back up, out at the courtyard. “I think I’m gonna try to play. Just some scales. Be careful, okay?” He gestured for Grace to back up, and she retreated partway down the steps even though she didn’t see what the fuss was about.

Until, with the first string of crystal clear notes, a breeze rose and ruffled Grace’s hair.

At first, she thought it was a draft. But as the scale built and the notes sparkled and echoed through the hall, the wind buffeted her more and more strongly. Her coat flapped as she grabbed the handrail. Grace picked her way down the steps to the bottom as the breeze swirled ever stronger, starting to worry she’d be flung down them otherwise. As she found footing at the ground floor, the violinist moved from scales to a song. The notes were slow, clear and shining, unmuddied by the whistling of the swirling wind. Even a level below, Grace’s hair whipped around her face, and the decorations along the walls and the chandelier suspended in air were flung about by the force of it.

The violinist remained untouched in the eye of the storm, gazing out the window as he played.

At the last, sharp note, the wind blasted and suddenly died.

The violinist turned around, gazing at the skewed decorations and still-swaying chandelier before his eyes finally rested on Grace.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, looking pale. “Um… sorry.” His face squirmed, somewhere between fear and guilt. Then, the violinist darted away and out of sight. Grace could hear his steps thumping for a moment after he disappeared, until that too faded from her perception.

Grace decided she needed a minute. She sank to the floor. “What,” she said.

What was that? No draft could possibly be that strong. Had the window broken and let all that wind in? But no, she saw, the window was intact. The front door was closed.

There was no way the violinist had conjured it. There had to be another explanation.

“This day has been far too strange,” Grace said quietly. She collected herself enough to scoot out of the way of the chandelier, which had slowed but not stopped its swaying. She looked around. She had started up the steps, sort of, and already been in the living room. The door next to her seemed to lead into a grand dining room that was entirely empty.

She wandered. Most of the front facing rooms of the house were grand; soaring ceilings and columns, lined with taxidermied beasts and spoils of exploration in faraway lands. Further in though, they got shabbier and smaller. She passed cramped-seeming hallways, and an extremely normal kitchen that felt jarring compared to the grandiose main rooms. She found a staircase leading down, and the walls became unfinished brick and cement. In these back rooms it soon became obvious that children lived here.

Toys, eclectic colorful possessions, remnants of dinosaur and car and soccer phases. Child-sized furniture, left-behind clothes, colorful pictures drawn by an amateur hand. And, as she turned a corner and found herself in a much smaller, more eclectic kitchen than one she’d found upstairs: new people, the first she’d seen since the violinist. Two grown men and a little girl that didn’t appear to belong to either of them.

The men were sitting at a table and drinking tea out of a children’s playset.

“I’m just saying,” said the grumpy one, “Dad’s the reason we’re in this mess. If he hadn’t killed JFK-“

“Oh you’re always just saying,” said the other lazily. He waved a hand, which had GOODBYE printed on it. “Take a chill pill and drink your tea.”

“Yeah,” said the little girl, “take a chill pill and drink your tea.” The lazy one giggled at that, and the grumpy one scowled.

“I’m sick of tea,” the grumpy one said. “All we do is sit here and drink tea.”

“Because we’re entertaining Claire, and Claire wants a tea party. Right, Claire-bear?”

The little girl, who was collecting fake food from the be-magneted fridge and pretending to cook it, grinned and nodded.

“For days?”

The lazy one rolled his eyes, tipping his chair back. “It hasn’t been days, it’s been ten minutes.”

“It’s been ten minutes,” said the grumpy one, grumpily, “for days.”

“That’s true enough,” the lazy one said thoughtfully, “it has been ten minutes for an awfully long time. I wonder what that’s about.” His chair came back down on all four legs with a clatter.

“I told you, Dad! It’s his fault. If he hadn’t-“

“Hold on,” said Grace. “What does your dad killing the president have to do with this tea party? And wait,” she added, “weren’t you saying that Reginald was the one that was going to kill JFK?”

“Yeah,” said the grumpy one, turning to her. “Like I said, Dad. Hi Mom.”

“I don’t understand why everyone keeps calling me that,” Grace said crossly. She sat down at the empty chair. An eager Claire trotted over to serve her tea and a plastic donut, both of which were rather glittery.

The two men ignored her, which she had been expecting. She was starting to give up on getting anyone to respond to that.

“Dad killed JFK and it fucked with time and now we’re stuck here,” the grumpy one insisted to the other.

The lazy one hummed. “I think Dad not killing JFK would be what fucked with time. Or someone not killing him, anyway. Five not killing him? Luther said something about-“

“Hi,” said Claire, suddenly reappearing at Grace’s elbow.

“Um,” Grace said. “Hi. Claire.”

Claire stared up at her intensely. She, like the donut and the tea, exuded glitter very strongly.

“How’s your tea party going?” Grace tried.

“Do you like your tea?”

“Uh,” Grace said awkwardly, “yes. Very much.” She pulled on a smile to show how much she had, in fact, liked her tea.

Claire squinted at her. “You haven’t even tried it.”

“Yes I have! I had a little sip. It was,” Grace scrambled to find a descriptor, “very tasty.”

Insulted, Claire insisted, “I watched you. You haven’t tried it!”

Grace picked up the little teacup and pretended to take a sip from it. “Mmm!” she said. “Delicious!”

Claire’s whole face folded into a suspicious glare. “You didn’t really drink it! I can tell.”

The grumpy one turned from his conversation with the lazy one. “Just humor her” he said. “You’ll never hear the end of it. Uh, I mean,” he added after a conspicuous thump and a wince, “it’s delicious. Good job Claire.”

“Thank you,” said Claire, appeased.

“It has glitter in it,” Grace hissed over Claire’s head.

“Aw, a little glitter never hurt nobody,” the lazy one said. “Believe me, one time I-“

“Anyway,” the grumpy one interrupted him. “Just drink it. You’ll be fine.”

Grace looked into Claire’s big pleading eyes, and took a hesitant sip. It was very watery tea, and lukewarm, but to its credit the glitter did not have a noticeable impact on the experience. “Thank you,” Grace said. “The tea is excellent. You’re a very good…”

“Superhero fairy princess chef,” Claire supplied, bouncing.

“A very good superhero fairy princess chef,” Grace repeated.

Claire grinned widely at her, then scampered over to where her pretend plastic cake was burning in its pretend plastic oven. The two men watched her go for a moment.

“What I was saying about Dad,” said the grumpy one, turning to the lazy one. “Time’s fucked, and it’s his fault. We have to find him and kill him.”

“Are you sure,” the lazy one whined. He shifted to lounge dramatically over the arms of the kitchen chair, which looked painful. “That sounds so hard. Maybe Time is just like this now. Same ten minutes of tea party forever and ever and ever and ever…” He trailed off, almost inaudible, repeating “and ever” quietly to himself.

The grumpy one seemed to give up on him. He turned to Grace. “Well?” he said.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to ditch Reginald or not?” He scowled at her. “He broke Time, isn’t that enough for you? And he killed the president!”

“Um,” said Grace helplessly. Had he? She thought that hadn’t happened yet. Wouldn’t happen? No, she thought that it wouldn’t happen, that was right. But if Time was broken… why did she think time was broken? All she had to go on was these two odd strangers. But it felt so much like the truth. Her head hurt.

The man scoffed at her.

“I’m just not sure what to do,” she insisted. “How could he have killed the president? Or broken Time? Or, how did killing the president break time? Why do you keep insisting that he’s going to, or did, or something? What do I have to do with it?”

The lazy one reached across the table and grabbed her hands in his. “Relax,” he said. “Like I always say, ‘don’t worry baby, everything will turn out alright’.”

“That’s— that’s a Beach Boys lyric, that isn’t helpful!” Grace pulled her hands back and stood. “You all are so weird, and confusing, and I have no idea what’s going on! JFK isn’t even dead!”

“He’s super dead,” said the lazy one. “Head blown up and everything.” He paused. “Is that why Time’s broken? Huh.”

Grace huffed and stormed off.

—

Grace had not been paying much attention to where she was going, and so was abruptly shaken from her funk when she suddenly found herself outside.

Not really outside, she noticed. She was boxed in by walls on all four sides. This must be the dreary courtyard she had seen from the window.

It was, if possible, even drearier at ground level than when viewed from above. There were no living plants, only dead grass and a few scraggly trees. Even the vines growing up the walls looked woeful and neglected, and Grace was fairly certain that ivy needed no caretaking from people to be a lush nuisance.

Towards the center was the statue she’d seen earlier. It was a black statue, maybe of marble or some other stone, and it was missing its head.

Nearer, Grace could see that the head had not gone very far. It was lying in the dirt a few paces from the statue. The statue seemed to be bent forlornly towards it.

“Who are you, I wonder,” she said. “It’s awfully rude of everyone to have left you without your head.”

BEN, read the name on the plinth.

“That’s a nice name,” said Grace. She bent down to pick up the statue’s head, and looked at it. The head looked forlorn, too. “You’re a little too tall for me to put this back, unfortunately.” As a compromise, she set the head on the plinth, next to the statue’s feet. Neither the head nor the statue looked any less sad, but Grace imagined to herself that she’d cheered him up.

“What happened to you,” Grace mused. The statue did not provide an answer. Grace probably wouldn’t want to talk about what had happened to her that had lead to a life-sized memorial for her either, so she considered that fair.

“Well either way, I hope you’re having a nice day,” she said. She frowned, and looked around. “Not that I can imagine having a nice day when this place looks so dismal. You should tell one of the odd people living here to plant some flowers. Or the little girl. I don’t think the greyest courtyard would survive against her.”

She patted the plinth. “It’s been nice talking with you. I hope they don’t let you get too lonely out here.” Then, she took another door back inside.

—

When she stepped inside, she became aware of a…. sound. As she followed it, it coalesced into the sound of someone, somewhere, desperately sobbing. A woman, maybe. She followed the sound up a flight of stairs and into a narrow dark hallway, lined with illustrations one might find in a nursery. The crying was more clear than ever, here, and carried an echoing quality.

Grace peered into the doors as she walked down the hall. A few were closed, and most of the others were only partially open, but as she passed she caught glimpses of children’s bedrooms, all apparently empty.

So many bedrooms, and yet the only child she’d seen was the one downstairs. How odd.

The crying was loudest at one of the closed doors. Grace knocked on it uncertainly, and the sobs abruptly quieted. But they didn’t stop.

“Hello,” Grace called. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” said a wavering voice through the door. “Don’t worry about me.”

Mom again. Grace was getting tired of it. Although in fairness, the woman could have simply mistaken her voice, and seeing Grace would clear everything up. Somehow, she doubted it.

“I’m coming in,” Grace said. She placed a hand on the doorknob, but waited before turning for the woman inside to protest. When she didn’t, Grace pushed open the door.

The door lead to a bathroom, as shabby and dark as the rest of the hall. Looking at it, Grace could nearly forget how opulent the front rooms had been. The woman was on the floor in a corner, leaning against the bathtub. Her makeup was running and her face was twisted with grief, but her hair and clothing were elegantly styled. She was beautiful, and her sadness seemed ill-fitting, as though the photo of a model on a magazine cover had had its heart broken.

Grace wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing here, seeking out a stranger to comfort. She’d been told—well, not to go away, but she had been told that there was no need to worry. It just seemed cruel to pretend that she hadn’t heard, and to leave the grieving woman alone.

“What’s wrong?” said Grace. She left the doorway and leaned against the sink, to feel a little less like she was hovering.

“It’s my daughter,” said the grieving woman, voice choked. She wiped at her eyes. Her makeup smudged further. “And, well. A lot of things.” She sniffled. “But mostly my daughter.”

Grace wasn’t certain what to say. What happened to her? felt presumptuous, but the grieving woman seemed too despondent for the answer to Is she alright? to be anything except ’No’. So she schooled her face into something sympathetic and worried, but didn’t speak.

“She’s gone,” the grieving women whispered. “I haven’t seen her in…” she took a moment, face breaking, as she visibly reigned in a sob. “In years. But she was still somewhere. That was the most important thing. I didn’t know to appreciate it at the time… but she was somewhere. And safe.” She pressed her lips together. “She just wasn’t with me. But now… now she’s gone.” A breath. “I’ve tried so hard to get her back. I’ve tried, but I can only do so much and—and none of the others care.” Furious tears fell, and she didn’t wipe them away. “They won’t help me. We all waste time on their stupid problems but my daughter—”

She cut herself off. Too angry to speak, or not able to bring herself to finish her thought.

“What happened to her,” asked Grace quietly.

“She—“ The grieving woman took a breath. “She’s dead now. Or she never existed, I guess. The timelines are confusing.” She sounded bitter. “But… she doesn’t exist, anymore. Not anywhere I can reach.” She covered her face. She’d started weeping again, quietly.

Grace felt bad for asking. She shifted her weight a little, unsure what to do with her hands. The grieving woman had closed herself off, so touching her in sympathy would likely be unwelcome, but leaving them by her sides felt awkward. She crossed her arms.

“What was her name?” Grace asked.

The grieving woman sniffled a little, and raised her head. Her cheeks were wet, but her eyes softened.

“Claire,” she said.

Grace took a breath to tell her how lovely a name that was, then paused. Frowned.

“There's a little girl downstairs called Claire,” she said without thinking. Then her mind caught up and she stopped herself before continuing. Is there any chance you were imagining your daughter being dead? What an awful thing to say.

The grieving woman clearly heard it anyway. Her face twisted. “That isn’t funny.” Then her face smoothed over, and she took a steadying breath. When she spoke again, she was much calmer. “Mom, Claire is gone. I know you’re confused, or trying to make me feel better, but please don’t say things like that.”

“But,” Grace said. She’d been expecting to be rebuffed as soon as she realized what she’d said, but with anger or hurt, not… whatever that was. “No, there really is a girl downstairs who told me her name is Claire.”

This woman’s pain was obviously real, but so too had been the little girl downstairs. Maybe this was a different girl, or perhaps some terrible misunderstanding had occurred. But either way Grace wasn’t confused.

“Look,” said the grieving woman, her voice tight. “I know you don’t mean anything bad by this. But I really cannot handle this right now. I’m sure whatever you think you saw feels real to you, but please stop telling me about it.”

Annoyed, Grace said “I don’t think I saw anything. I know a little girl named Claire is having a tea party downstairs and she served me tea with glitter in it that tasted very bad. I’m not imagining anything. Maybe you should go check before you accuse me of lying!”

“Shut up!” The grieving woman said. “Claire is gone! She can’t exist here. I never existed here! I’ve gotten my hopes up so. Many. Times, and its never true.” She glared at Grace, who backed up to give her space. “She’s not here. It is literally not possible for her to be here. Stop torturing me!”

The room was silent for a moment, apart from the last note of her shout ringing against the tile. The grieving woman scrubbed her face. “Get out,” she said. Steely, but not angry.

Grace hesitated.

“Get out,” the grieving woman insisted. “Please. I can’t deal with you right now.”

So Grace got out.

She closed the door behind her, careful not to make a sound. It was a futile point, but seemed wrong to disturb the grieving woman even more than she already had.

That had gone… badly. Grace had successfully found a distraught woman and tortured her with false hope about her dead child.

But surely the little girl downstairs was the grieving woman’s daughter? Having the same name was too much of a coincidence, and she even shared some family resemblance. Perhaps there was another girl named Claire related to the household somehow, but wouldn’t that have occurred to the grieving woman before she accused Grace of imagining things? What explanation was there other than that the grieving woman was somehow, horribly, mistaken?

—

Grace ventured into the house, vaguely thinking of finding that room downstairs again, but soon found herself lost and wandering. Eventually, she stumbled through an unassuming doorway onto a rooftop, somehow at the complete opposite end of the building than she’d intended to get to. The roof might have had a garden once, but it was barren now, and there was a rundown structure that might have once been an observatory in the center. It seemed to have been repurposed into a greenhouse at some point in its life, long ago enough that it too sat abandoned.

But, Grace noticed just as she was deciding to return to her search, not empty.

Through the dusty glass, she could see the vague shape of someone inside.

This was the first person she’d seen in a while, since she’d upset the woman crying in the bathroom. Grace crossed the rooftop, stepping gingerly over dust and rubble, possibly from long-gone unknown stone decorations that had been chipped at by time and the elements during their residence here. The door to the former-greenhouse formerer-observatory was not locked, and didn’t seem capable of latching at all. The shadow through the windows did not stir; the person inside did not seem to have noticed her arrival. She pulled open the door.

The person inside was…

A chimpanzee?

Grace made a startled sound. The chimpanzee’s head turned towards her, shit. It didn’t look aggressive, so Grace decided the best course of action was backing away, slowly, and putting first the flimsy observatory door and then the much sturdier door to the roof between herself and it.

The chimpanzee was wearing clothes. Wonderful, so this wasn’t simply a rich person’s private zoo animal, but a pet that whoever owned this place let wander the house. She needed to get out of here.

Before she had made much progress, the chimpanzee said, “Grace?”

“What,” said Grace. She must have been mistaken. There had to be a second person in here somewhere she couldn’t see. There were a lot of empty racks that likely once held plants, and sheets of translucent tarp that could possibly obscure another person. But she could have sworn she’d seen the chimpanzee’s mouth move.

The chimpanzee’s brow furrowed, looking very much like human consternation. “Are you alright, my dear?” it seemed to say. Its mouth moved in time with the words, and the voice seemed to come from its direction, but that was simply impossible.

“Um,” said Grace, “Who are you? And… where are you? And, can we talk perhaps somewhere that doesn’t have an adult chimpanzee in it.”

The chimpanzee—she was not taking her eyes off of it, and carefully monitoring its body language—the chimpanzee straightened a little, and blinked as if in surprise. Even for a chimpanzee raised as a pet among people, its body language was remarkably human.

“That would be a little difficult, I’m afraid,” said… said the voice. “It’s rather hard to have a conversation with someone from another room.”

“It’s a very clever trick you’re playing”, Grace said. “I don’t know how you trained it to speak in time with you. But chimpanzees are wild animals and very dangerous and I would be much more comfortable speaking in a room away from it.”

The chimpanzee’s brows raised. “I won’t lie, that is a bit insulting.” It tilted its head, an imitation of human sympathy crossing its face. “It’s no trick. There is no one else here. You aren’t yet familiar with Reginald’s work, then?”

Grace frowned. “What does Reginald have to do with it?” The voice was accented British, but didn’t sound like Reginald. She would have noticed before now.

“Why,” said the chimpanzee, “everything.” Before she could formulate a reply, the chimpanzee—or rather the voice—added, “Here, I’ll show you. Let’s go out onto the roof.”

The chimpanzee lifted itself out of the chair it was seated in, and retrieved a cane Grace hadn’t noticed had been leaning nearby. She backed up, faster than she should have. The chimpanzee noticed and paused, as if trying to ease her skittishness

“It’s all right,” said—it was said. “I’m not going to hurt you. Why don’t you go out ahead of me? Wait for me on the roof.” The chimpanzee put its cane down and leaned onto it, but did not make to move.

A chimpanzee was capable of a great deal of damage, but Grace was starting to accept that it would not be immediately aggressive. She kept her eye on it, though, and backed away carefully, keeping her body language relaxed and unthreatening. When she reached the door, she made sure it opened and then shut quietly. Then she was out on the roof.

Common sense told her to leave through the roof door immediately, and put as many closed doors between herself and the chimpanzee as she could. But…

She was curious. How was this chimpanzee acting so human? How had it been trained to mime speaking like that? And the chimpanzee hadn’t even hinted at being aggressive yet. As long as she left before it did, It likely wouldn’t be able to hurt her.

Despite her better judgement, she stayed.

After a few moments, the chimpanzee came shuffling out. It nodded at her. It walked slowly, like its joints ached. It was old, its fur greying, but it was difficult to determine how much of its slowness was due to age, and how much was…

She caught herself before she started ascribing human motivations to it. It wasn’t trying to avoid startling her. Anthropomorphizing wild animals was an excellent way to underestimate them, or overestimate them, and either way find yourself being attacked. And a chimpanzee, no matter how seemingly well trained, was certainly a wild animal. Pogo wasn’t fully grown yet and even then everyone knew to be cautious around him.

The chimpanzee came closer. Grace watched it carefully, but did not move away. It stopped just a little outside comfortable conversation range. No other person came out of the observatory.

“Here,” said the chimpanzee, impossibly. “Now we have a bit more space, and you can see a bit better. I’m the one that is talking, Grace.”

It was the same voice as in the observatory. No one had followed it out. The voice was clear, no staticky quality to it, absolutely no indication it came from any kind of speaker. The chimpanzee’s face and throat, and minutely, its body, moved perfectly in time with the words. Every one of her senses told her that the chimpanzee had just spoken to her.

“That’s impossible,” Grace insisted.

The chimpanzee heard the shift, though, despite her words, and smiled. As all of the previous expressions, this one was so very human. It was also a little sad. “I was hoping you might recognize me, after all this time, despite myself. I suppose it’s no surprise that you don’t.”

Graces brow furrowed. “You don’t mean…”

“My name is Pogo,” said the chimpanzee. “I must imagine I’m rather changed than when you last saw me.”

Grace stared.

“What,” she breathed.

Pogo smiled gently at her. He was so much older than the Pogo she’d left earlier that very day. He was all grown, and wearing a suit tailored to fit him, and used a cane sized for his height. She could see no evidence of the damage left by the rocket’s failure, though that was already fading in the Pogo she knew, thanks to whatever strange drug Reginald had used. And of course… he could talk.

That mysterious serum of Reginald’s. Hm.

“You mentioned Reginald,” she said quickly. “That he has everything to do with it. Did he…”

“‘Did he do this to me’?” Pogo said. “Indeed.” He took a few steps closer to her. “I’m not certain how, exactly. I know it has something to do with the aftereffects of healing me from the crash. Most likely it’s already started in your Pogo, too. But whatever he did, here I am.” He spread his hands. “I can talk, I can reason. I’m just as intelligent as any human.” He returned to leaning on his cane and hesitated, mulling something over. A bit shyly, he added, “I taught the children here most of their lessons. I like to think I was quite good at it.”

Grace smiled. “That’s incredible,” she said. Then added, “so there are children here?”

“Oh no, they’re all grown up now.” Pogo said. “They’re just always children to me.” He thought for a moment. “Have you met any of them yet?”

Grace frowned. “I might have. I’ve run into several people here.” She considered her options, then took a chance. “Most of them called me Mom. Do you know why that is?”

Pogo looked up at rather searchingly. “Have they,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Grace. That must be terribly confusing for you. “

“It is!” Grace exclaimed. “And none of them can seem to hear me when I tell them they’re mistaken. They must have me confused for someone else.”

Pogo just watched her, sadly. After a moment he said, “No.”

“No?” Grace said, nonplussed.

“They’re not mistaken,” Pogo said. “I’m so sorry. You are.”

“Excuse me,” Grace said crossly.

Pogo sighed. “It’s not your fault you don’t remember. But surely you must have picked up on something by now. You and I are so very similar.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by all that,” said Grace. She was wary of where this was going, though she did not quite know why.

“Yes,” said Pogo. “It’s quite unnatural that the two of us creatures can talk.”

“What do you mean,” Grace said, a pit opening in her stomach.

“My dear girl,” he said, “haven’t you noticed?

“Reginald wound me up and let me talk, and here I am chattering away long after his death. And he’s done the same to you, I’m afraid.”

“Reginald hasn’t done a thing to me,” Grace protested, suddenly feeling like she was lying. “I’m a person Pogo, I’m not like you. I’ve always been able to speak.”

Pogo reached over and gently placed a wrinkled hand over her own. “I’m so sorry to tell you this my dear, but you ought to know. Grace was a person, but you’re just as much his invention as I am.”

“But,” Grace said.

But I’m Grace, she wanted to say. But the words stuck in her mouth, and something deep inside her kept them from forming. She’d had so much trouble remembering things. And this place was so strange. And all these odd people calling her Mom and refusing to hear her when she protested. She could hear them now, emerging onto the roof and calling for her. Not for her. For whatever it is they thought she was.

For her?

“What did he do to me,” she whispered.

Grace stared down at her hands. They looked the same as always, but she was suddenly certain that something had quietly and irrevocably changed. The pulse in her wrists—it was wrong. It was cold, and alien, and she could feel it changing from an organic, thumping beat into a mechanical hum. She brushed her forearm with one hand, and she could feel it, but it was wrong. Sensation, but not from her own nerves sending signals transformed into feeling by her own brain. Electrical pressure sensors instead, translated into touch by the output of a computer. So close, so similar, that she hadn’t noticed before. But it wasn’t the same. She was breathing harder but experienced neither relief nor overwhelm. The act of air being pushed into and then out of a cavity unreactive to its presence. She pulled at her skin and it did not whiten with blood loss, because it was already bloodless, blushed and dyed in simulation of life. She dug her nails in and peeled. Silicon skin split and revealed no blood, no clinging fat, no red muscle bared to the air. Instead she found an infestation of blinking lights and wires that had burrowed into her and taken up her body while she hadn’t been paying attention, while this bizarre place had held her off kilter. Revulsion crept up her throat—a throat that had been made mechanical, revulsion simulated by computer programming that was her and was not her, that was pretending to be her while the meat and blood and animal of her had been exchanged for this… this….

She pulled at her hair, synthetic strands of plastic pulling at a silicon scalp stretched over a mechanical skull, all of it received and felt and orchestrated by a computer. She was a computer in the shape of a person, feeling horror at its own existence when all the meat that should feel horror had been stolen away. She wasn’t crying. Could machines cry? Maybe, she thought, laughing to herself, that too had been taken from her. From not-her. From what she used to be.

Where was Grace when all that made Grace was gone?

Her skin felt wrong. Her head hurt. She could feel the strange people, crowding around her and asking if she was alright and always, over and over again, calling her Mom.

“Stop calling me that!” she exploded, wrestling against their attempts to hold her and soothe her. “I’m not your mother! Leave me alone!” She tore herself from their hands and backed away, panting.

She bumped into something solid and whirled around. The man in the alien costume, who was not in any costume at all.

“Grace,” The alien said. He sounded sad, or maybe disappointed.

“Reginald,” she snarled. “You did this. Whatever is going on, it’s your fault.”

“My dear,” he said, approaching her with placating hands, “nothing is going on.”

“Nothing?” she asked. “Look at what you did to me!” She clawed at the gash she’d already torn in her arm with her perfectly manicured nails, ripping bloodless furrows into her skin. Plastic and silicone split, baring icy metal and machine and nothing at all human anymore.

“You did this to me,” she seethed.

Beneath her, the world fell away under the force of her rage.

Grace came awake suddenly, pushing herself up from the desk. Her face smarted, faintly, from being pressed into her pens. She was still in the lab, of course, and nobody had intruded, certainly not anyone dressed in an outlandish costume. There was no door leading outside that should have led to a records room, because she had never left this room at all. There was no strange building and nothing had happened to her. She was still… a person.

She shook her head, feeling dazed. She carefully gathered the papers she’d been reading, and put them back exactly where she’d found them. Reginald was very meticulous with his notes and she didn’t want him to notice they’d been disturbed.